For immediate release –  December 2, 2010: As one of the intervenors in the legal challenge of Canada’s prostitution laws, REAL Women of Canada is pleased that the Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled that the prostitution laws will stay in place until the appeal is heard in its court April 2011.

This decision prevents Ontario from becoming a center of prostitution and organized crime in Canada, where pimps could freely rule prostitutes, and the police would be powerless to intervene and to prevent the chaos and harassment that would occur in the ensuing sexual free for all of an unrestricted sex industry.

The lower court decision, by the single Judge Madam Justice Susan Himel, was deeply flawed in that she reached her conclusion solely on the basis of uncertain social science evidence of purported “harm” to prostitutes working on the streets as opposed to those working in brothels. She also ignored a previous 1992 decision by the Supreme Court of Canada, which concluded that prostitution was a complex social problem to society, and not merely a “social nuisance” as claimed by Judge Himel.

“The decision by the Ontario Court of Appeal to put the stay on the lower court’s decision was both reasonable and practical,” said Gwen Landolt, National Vice President of REAL Women. “It saves not only prostitutes from harm, the number of which would vastly increase as a result of Madam Justice Himel’s decision, but also protects society from the detrimental effects caused by a wide-open sex industry.”

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For further information, please contact:

C. Gwendolyn Landolt                                         Diane Watts

National Vice President                                       Researcher, National Office

(905) 787-0348                                                   (613) 236-4001

(905) 731-5425